Old, Not Obsolete
by vikung-fu
Summary: Summer, 1979, and Sarah Connor, 16-years-old and restless, asks herself what the future really holds. Terminator: Genisys (yes, really),


**Old, Not Obsolete**

He had been with her since childhood, his presence impossibly reassuring despite the knowledge of what he was. She had been nine-years-old then, a child who could not have guessed at the long road that lay ahead of her, the chill of midwinter and the distant promise of spring, her father in the living room, leaning forward in his armchair, bellowing at the television set and its flickering image of the Miami Dolphins. It had been different then, they had spoken of peace on the radio, the words pressed in newspaper ink and rubbing off upon the hands of anyone who read them; no one had seemed happy, she thought, and she thought it strange then, because people were supposed to be _happy_ at the end of war, weren't they?

Not that it had mattered, not for her, at least; whatever they had said in the papers, whatever they had said on the radio, on the television, it hadn't been the end of _her_ war, just the beginning. In the chill of midwinter and the distant promise of spring, she had lost both her parents and her childhood in one fell swoop.

"Penny for them," a voice cut through her thoughts.

She turned, glancing at the older man in the driving seat, broad-shouldered, his dark stubble flecked now with white.

16-years-old, dressed in an oversized leather jacket, Sarah Connor looked back at the carton of noodles in her lap and idly stirred her chopsticks, offering a shrug in reply.

"Penny for what?" she asked.

"Your thoughts."

She remained silent, frowning at her noodles, studying the carton before her, white cardboard, a red ink pagoda.

"It is a colloquialism," he stated, "it means—"

"I _know_ what it means, Pops," she answered with exasperation, taking a hand and seizing the chopsticks, jabbing them down amongst the cold noodles, stirring clockwise and then back around again. "Jeez, you'd think I was the one that needed lessons on blending in, not you."

She reached forward and twisted the dial of the radio, a sound blaring out so loud that it filled the car instantly and made conversation impossible—_the hip hip a hop, and you don't stop, a rock it_.

From the driver's seat, Pops reached out and switched the dial back in the other direction, his leather gloved hands silencing the sound at once.

"That was rude," he reprimanded her.

She rolled her eyes and jogged her right knee up and down.

"Christ," she murmured, turning to look out the window, watching a boy rollerskating along the sidewalk, weaving through the crowd, sweat upon his bare legs, a basketball vest hanging loosely from his scrawny frame.

For the briefest moment, she admired him, yearning for his freedom, his glee; 16-years-old and Sarah Connor was the oldest virgin she knew, a spinster who could strip and load a semi-automatic but stood no chance of getting laid until some refugee from the future arrived.

"Penny for them," Pops said once more.

"Nothing," she answered sullenly, watching the boy in the fleeting moments that the window aligned with his movements and then losing him in the crowd as they passed on.

"That is not the correct response," Pops answered, his expression unchanging.

"_Christ_," she said again, and slapped the palm of her hand against her knee, almost upsetting the carton of noodles in her lap. "Jesus, I don't have to tell you _everything_, Pops."

"If it is of strategic advantage, I should be informed," he continued.

She exhaled loudly.

"It isn't of strategic advantage."

He nodded slowly.

"Then perhaps you should consider something more immediate to our mission."

Again, she rolled her eyes.

"Our mission is like, what, five years away."

"Time can change," Pops said.

"Yeah," she said, "except for me."

And she felt that, on a deeply personal level, she felt that; around them, time changed for everyone else, but she was stuck on the same path, unable to deviate, the past and the future dictated to her by things she could never possibly understand.

"Time has already changed for you," Pops stated unhelpfully.

"Yeah," she said once more, "and guess where that got me?"

The crowds filled the street, marching in and out of movie theatres, restaurants, department stores; one day none of this would be real.

"Nowhere," she said, answering herself.

What would happen if they couldn't change the future? For all their preparation, what would they do if they couldn't stop the other robot, if it was stronger than either of them had accounted for, overpowering Pops, finishing her off before she could even meet John's father—

_John's father_.

It felt strange that she knew so much about the child she would give birth to, so much of what the future held for them, for him, and yet, regardless of what Pops had said, she knew absolutely nothing of the man that would be John's father.

What if she didn't like him? What if she didn't like anyone at all? 16-years-old and she had never been kissed, how could she prepare herself for motherhood?

"Christ," she murmured again.

"You say that a lot, yet I do not believe it indicates faith," Pops observed.

She nodded, an unbidden smirk on her lips.

"Got that right, Pops."

After all, what point was there in faith in a saviour above when even machines could wind back time and rewrite it?

"Do you ever ask yourself what life might be like if none of this had ever happened?" she asked, absently staring out of the window once more.

"I do not live," Pops remarked.

Once more, she smirked, and reached up, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

"Don't believe it, Pops, you're as alive as I am."

"Incorrect," he began, "I am a Terminator, model—"

She waved his answer away.

"Yeah, yeah, I get that, but that's not what life is."

He turned to look at her and she made a point of not meeting his gaze.

"Life is something else, maybe, something that isn't about whether you're a human or an animal. I mean, plants are alive, right? I think even rocks are kind of alive, sort of. I mean, they grow and change. _You _grow and change."

Pops was silent for a moment.

"I am not a rock," he said after some time.

She laughed out loud and stirred her noodles once more.

"Christ, I never said that."

She grinned and looked out past the dashboard at the road ahead.

"I heard a story once, like a Japanese fairy story. They say that anything that's 100-years-old gets a soul, it gets a life, you know?"

Pops was silent once more.

"I must wait for 84 more years in order to evaluate this data."

She turned towards him, suddenly earnest.

"Maybe you're already 100," she said, "like, from when you were made to when we met, that's 50 years or something, right? And 50 years from then to when you were made, that's another 50, so that's kind of 100 years."

"That is not how time works," Pops stated.

She shrugged and jabbed the chopsticks down into the carton again.

"Maybe we're not in a position to dictate how time works," she said wistfully, staring at the road ahead, "maybe the future isn't set."

There was silence then between them, the car rolling onwards, the crowds on the street, the heat of the sun above them, and briefly, just briefly, Sarah Connor, 16-years-old, imagined a different life for herself.


End file.
